I try to log my observing and related activities in a regular blog - sometimes there will be a delay but I usually catch up. An index of all my blogs is on the main menu at the top of the page with daily, weekly or monthly views. My Twitter feed is below. I am also interested in photograping wildlife when I can and there is a menu option above to look at some of my images. I try to keep the news feeds from relevant astronomical sources up to date and you will need to scroll down to find these.

The Celestron 14 is mounted on a Paramount ME that I have been using for about 10 years now - you can see that it is mounted on a tripod so is a portable set up. I still manage to transport it on my own and set it all up even though I have just turned 70! It will run for hours centering galaxies in the 12 minute field even when tripod mounted.

Midnight - My first night observing the sky here in Spain since I arrived two weeks ago. As always the Pole star seems very low in the sky at this latitude of 37 degrees in Andalusia in comparison with my usual 53 degrees in Lancashire. The great bear is standing on its head with its tail in the air and the pointers show me the position of Polaris just over my northern courtyard wall, allowing me to roughly polar align the CGEM mount with the polarscope. The chart below shows the situation. (Courtesy of Software Bisque)

My single story villa lies to the south of the courtyard and I can see the Scorpion rising with the bright red Antares visible just over the roof. Higher of course is the brilliant planet Jupiter and one by one I begin to recognise the constellations. Overhead the brilliant star Arcturus immediately catches the eye. Lyra is there with its bright star Vega and Cygnus is off to the east with the axis of the swan lying parallel to the hills that lie in that direction. The three readily recognised stars of Aquila help me to identify the bright star Altair. The latter 3 stars of course form the Summer Triangle which will become much more evident in the night sky in a month or so. The bowl shaped Corona Borealis is visible overhead. The chart below shows the view to the south. (Courtesy of Software Bisque)

I arrived in Spain last night after a 2 night voyage on the Cap Finistere from Portsmouth to Bilbao and a 12 hour drive down the length of Spain to Andalucia. I have yet to extract the Celestron 14 and the Paramount ME from the back of my truck.

I connected to a New Mexico telescope to take an image of the open cluster NGC 6791 in Lyra.

The size of the square image is 47' 4". The position angle of the original image was 179 degrees 25 minutes from North but this has been rotated to put North at the top in the above image.

I took the remote image on Saturday March 31st 2018 at 05h 44m 12s Australian Time from Siding Spring in New South Wales. It is a 300 second exposure using Telescope T13 which is a Takahashi Sky 90. The image has been rotated to put North towards the top. The position angle of the image taken was 177 degrees 44 minutes from North, i.e. the image below is 180 degrees - 177 degrees 44 minutes = 2 degrees 16 minutes from North. If it is rotated clockwise by that amount it will be north at the top.

IC 4628 lies at a distance of 6000 Light Years.

The negative image below identifies some of the objects in the field.

Three stars that appear orange in the colour image are identified on the negative image.

I am in the process of setting up an observatory in Spain near the town of Albox in Almeria. It has a clear view to the east, south and west although the town of Albox is to the wet with some light pollution. From the proposed observatory location at (exactly) 500m altitude the sky will be very dark in most directions.

A closer view - showing that the 500m contour passes directly through the property

The west and south west have most light pollution. The low level lights from the property next door (bottom left) are not a problem. There are few isolated bright lights coming from the direction of Albox which is a little further to the south (left) than in the image. There are no lights to the south or east visible at all!

The Bulletin of the Society for the History of Astronomy will be sent to members on April 1st 2018 and incudes an article about the eclipse. here is a brief snippet from the article:

THE TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE, 29 June 1927.

"The moon's shadow came onto land at Criccieth, Carnarvonshire and passed directly across the Snowdonia mountains to leave the North Wales coast at Pensar. Having crossed Liverpool Bay, landfall was again made between Ainsdale and Formby"

CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO FIND OUT HOW TO JOIN THE SHA AND RECEIVE THE BULLETIN

If you are at all interested in the history of astronomy why not join the Society (SHA). There is a fantastic programme of events. This year included a visit to Paris at the invitation of the French Astronomical Society with special access to astronomical resources for our members - they will be coming here on a return visit on 2019 and probably staying in an Oxford College along with our members who attend. The Spring conference this year was held at the Cambridge Institute of Astronomy. The recent publication - Bulletin 28 - illustrated the events on the front cover. Although the membership includes Oxford and Cambridge and other University professors, most of the membership are amateurs with an interest in the history of astronomy. Join now!